Mark Bradford and the Expertise of Formalism
One of the most sought-after views around the world is that of a city at night. Whether it is from a nearby hill, a plane, or even from space, there is something deeply fascinating about the sparkling star-like cluster of lights that come from a city. Bradford incapsulates this city feeling perfectly in his composition Los Moscos, 2006, creating what looks like a flyover view of a city grid. As you view the work, you are forced to try and find the details that you might when actually looking at such a view: Where is the city center? Is that dark spot a park or clearing? Can I make out a structure I know? Your mind starts to find streets and traffic, illuminated billboards, neighborhoods. What is unique about this piece is that it is essentially created from fragments of the exact thing you are trying to locate; advertisements and papers found on the streets of Los Angeles. The title Los Moscos is Spanish for, “‘the flies’, a derogatory term applied to migrant laborers,”[3] who make up a huge portion Los Angeles and represent various ethnic communities. By taking pieces of material from all over Los Angeles, Bradford is essentially recreating the city on canvas out of itself, creating an almost cyclical representation of the immense differences in cultures yet unity in residence. While there are visible letters in the composition, we cannot make out what language they are, just as we cannot know what these papers were originally used to represent. This is mirrored in the fact that when looking at a city at night, we cannot possibly know the materials and people that make it up.
Another exemplary work of Bradford’s ability to create deep meaning out of the formal elements of his work is his piece Deep Blue, 2018. This fifty-foot-wide canvas portrays what looks to be a city grid similar to the imagery in Los Moscos, however this piece offers a much brighter composition with more defined lines. This is most likely due to the fact that Bradford built this painting around the map of the Watt neighborhood in Los Angeles, subject of racially charged riots in 1965, which resulted in the deaths of 34 people.[4] The painting features a large array of brightly colored circles which serve as pinpoints to notable locations during the riots, such as the sights of fires, police attacks, and deaths. The composition is altogether violent, with cuts deep into the multilayered canvas with paper seemingly ripped away as well, all the while even more material juts out across the composition.
This again shows us how Bradford uses formalism to create intricate emotion and storytelling, all while using extremely limited iconography or symbolism.
This is no mistake by Bradford however as he purposely uses non art materials to create these works. By using found materials, rope, construction paper, nails, and other common materials he builds a familiar feeling for many people as many of these materials would be similar to ones we would find around the house and use as children for arts and crafts, albeit used here at a much more extensive scale. Bradford himself says that, “My motto was, ‘If Home Depot didn't have it, Mark Bradford didn't use it.’”[5], a testament to this commitment of using real world objects. In many of his works Bradford aims to tell stories of the strife of normal working-class citizens, and through his use of the common material he solidifies this narrative, whether it be through the use of reclaimed advertisements or house project materials. It is also worth noting that in constructing these immense canvases, he mostly uses the tools many suburban homeowners would possess, such as power washers or sanders. These tools give his works their rugged and homemade feeling, as the artist spends months continually adding and subtract material from each work. As none of the process is automated, this also plays into this idea of representing the labor of those he represents through the formal, all the way down to the physical processes of the formal elements’ creation.
Bradford’s use of material is unlike any other artist. His monstrous creations, many a dozen feet tall and four times as wide, end up inches deep in material. The use of reclaimed material shows the humanness of the stories he tries to tell, as these would have been found at the scenes he discusses. The exposition of these layered materials reminds us of how deep the stories behind his works go, and that they cannot be understood from simply the surface. The ability to make the recognizable, such as the lettering in Los Moscos, uninterpretable while not completely alienating it lets us know that while we may not fully understand something, we can use our common understandings to come away with meaning. While Mark Bradford’s work may not convey to us any explanation through its symbolism and present us with limited icons, his expertise of formal elements make his paintings as deeply rooted with story as any.
[1] Mark Bradford, interview by Anderson Cooper, 60 Minutes, CBS Interactive Inc., September 15, 2019.
[2] Art in the Twenty-First Century, season 4, episode 4, “Paradox,” directed by Nick Ravich, created by Susan Dowling, featuring Mark Bradford, aired September 2007, in broadcast syndication. https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s4/paradox/.
[3] “Mark Bradford,” Liverpool Biennial, 2006, https://www.biennial.com/2006/exhibition/artists/mark-bradford.
[4] “THE BROAD ACQUIRES MAJOR WORKS BY MARK BRADFORD AND DAVID HAMMONS,” ArtForum, June 17, 2019, https://www.artforum.com/news/the-broad-acquires-major-works-by-mark-bradford-and-david-hammons-80109.
[5] Bradford.